The sex scene in Morrissey’s novel is eye-wateringly bad

Sadly, it looks as though Morrissey’s debut novel is a stinker. Early reviews of List of the Lost have not been kind, with the Guardian’s Michael Hann calling the book – which is about a 1970s relay racing team and a demon – “an unpolished turd.”

One passage gaining particular attention is this excruciating description of “full-figured copulation” between two main characters, which you may need to sit down for:

“Eliza and Ezra rolled together into the one giggling snowball of full-figured copulation, screaming and shouting as they playfully bit and pulled at each other in a dangerous and clamorous rollercoaster coil of sexually violent rotation with Eliza’s breasts barrel-rolled across Ezra’s howling mouth and the pained frenzy of his bulbous salutation extenuating his excitement as it smacked its way into every muscle of Eliza’s body except for the otherwise central zone.”

Horrifying – and that’s just the punctuation. That said, there’ll be no losers here if it introduces “bulbous salutation” to the wider world.